


Concern

by little_princes_sheep



Series: Together [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst, Autistic Character, Blood, Crying, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Violence, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-06 06:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15188900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_princes_sheep/pseuds/little_princes_sheep
Summary: Leon gets hurt on the job.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s dark in Elliot’s apartment. The sounds of the city filter in through the thin walls of the building, police sirens and loud conversations wafting up to provide background noise for Elliot’s hacking escapades. He’s booting up his computer to bask in its glow. While he waits, he watches Qwerty loop around and around in his fishbowl.

There’s a new employee who has taken a cubicle just across from Elliot at work, and he needs to carry out his usual invasive routine to scope them out. It’s a comforting process. He settles down in front of his monitor and allows himself to be entertained by the simple, but admittedly fun, activity. Hacking someone new is always an interesting puzzle to unlock, and he’s so focused on his work that he doesn’t notice the shuffling footsteps in the hallway until there’s a loud thump at the door. He flinches hard, rudely awoken from his thoughts.

The unexpected noise has him shifting in his chair, uncomfortable. It’s the middle of the night. He rarely gets visitors to his apartment, except for Darlene and Leon, making this an unsettling disturbance. Standing, he crosses the room to peek through the peephole. Leon is there, but something isn’t right. He’s leaning heavily against the wall, not to rest but to keep himself propped up. One of his hands is clutching his arm tightly, his face drawn tense and serious in a way that strikes worry through Elliot’s heart.

Elliot swings the door open immediately, eyes wide with panic, taking in every inch of Leon’s form. His hands come up to touch him, but then he pulls them back, concerned that he might somehow cause him more harm.

“Leon? Are you injured?”

In response, it seems like he can barely muster up more than a grunt, and that’s when Elliot really starts to panic. He tries to tug Leon into his apartment as gently as he can, closing the door behind them quickly and flicking the light switch on to examine him. The light reveals a dark scarlet stain permeating through Leon’s hoodie, as well as splashes of red across his shoes and jeans. Feeling his fingers sticking together, Elliot looks down to see that his own fingers have been smudged with Leon’s blood, and his breath starts to catch and stutter in his chest.

“Um,” he starts, trying to reboot his shuttering mind. “I have a first aid kit, somewhere. Uh… stay there.”

He manages to gesture roughly in the direction of his couch, and then rushes to the bathroom without sparing a second. Pulling open the medicine cabinet over the sink, he fumbles around for the first aid kit and opens it up. It’s almost empty — either a testament to how little he cares about health and safety or how often he gets hurt. That doesn’t matter right now. There’s enough to help Leon, and that’s all that matters.

Upon returning, he sees that Leon has stripped himself of his hoodie and shirt, exposing his wounds. He’s dropped himself down onto the couch like a dead weight, bare back pressed heavily against the cushions. His entire torso is scratched up and beaten, but the most worrisome injury is the deep stab wound on his left arm. Elliot can’t afford to pause, and he busies himself with setting down the kit and starting to treat what looks like the most serious wounds before he can get distracted by all of the purpling bruises and faded scars on Leon’s body. He always knew that Leon’s job was dangerous, but Leon always brushes off his worries, saying that he’s too skilled to get seriously injured.

Elliot’s hands shake as they wrap a bandage tightly around Leon’s forearm. If he’d known that it was _this_ dangerous, he would have said something. He would have _done_ something. He can feel Leon’s eyes on him, and he looks up to check on him. From the way his clothes have been destroyed with red, he’s lost a lot of blood, so Elliot is grateful to see that he’s still conscious.

“Thanks, beautiful,” says Leon. His lips are quirking up in a small smile, but his eyes are tight with pain. Elliot can’t find it in himself to try to return it, so caught up in the flurry of panic in his mind that he can’t even focus on anything else. He starts to tug on Leon’s jeans to check for more wounds, but Leon stops him.

“No, cuz,” he says, large hands resting heavily on Elliot’s. “Don’t worry about down there. That blood’s not mine.”

“What…” Elliot’s voice falters, and he clears his throat, self-conscious. “What happened?”

“I just got caught off guard, is all. This usually doesn’t happen. I figured, your place is closer than mine, so… don’t worry, I got the job done. That’s what matters, right?”

Elliot’s shaking his head before Leon can stop talking, hands coming up to scratch roughly at his own scalp. Tears are starting to prick at his eyes. Now that he knows that the worst of Leon’s wounds have been seen to, he lets some of the encroaching terror seep deeper into his body. The overwhelming burst of fear he had felt when he saw just how bad Leon’s injuries are returns. It spreads through him, consuming him. He almost lost Leon tonight.

Seeing the beginning of Elliot’s spiral, Leon leans forward, concerned. That wasn’t fair — he was the one who had been hurt, he shouldn’t have to be worried about Elliot right now.

“I said don’t worry, Elliot. It’s not as bad as it looks. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”

That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Their eyes meet, and Elliot’s mind begins to race. How many times did he almost lose Leon without realising it? He had known that Leon worked as an assassin for some shady people, but Leon urged him to stay out of it for his own safety and, against his usual nosy instincts, he did. He thought that it was to protect Leon, but in reality, it was to protect him — to protect him from the knowledge of the danger that his boyfriend puts himself in constantly in order to put food on the table for his sisters.

All of the air in Elliot’s lungs rushes out of him, leaving him deflated and shaky where he is perched on the edge of the couch.

“You don’t have to keep working for them, Leon,” he says, spurred on by the pain that has taken hold of his mind, reminding him of what it felt like to be alone, to have no one. Now that he’s gotten a taste of what it’s like to be loved, he can’t imagine losing Leon. He can’t lose Leon, and he can’t continue to do nothing, knowing that Leon’s life is being placed on the line whenever he goes out on a job. “I make a lot of money at AllSafe, I can help you with your sisters. There are other options, please don’t put yourself in danger like this.”

It’s Leon’s turn to shake his head now.

“It’s not that simple, cuz. Once you’re in with these guys, there’s no getting out. And anyways, I’m good at what I do. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Tonight was just a fluke. I’ll be fine.”

“Please,” Elliot pleads, desperate. “You can’t keep working for them. I didn’t know… I didn’t know that you were getting hurt like this. I —” He cuts himself off once he hears his voice become thick with tears. He can’t help it, but he doesn’t want to cry when Leon is the one he should be focusing on.

One of Leon’s hands slides up to rest on the side of Elliot’s neck, his palm sturdy and tough. Elliot knows that Leon has killed — that Leon could just as easily kill _him_ , if he wanted to. This trust that has developed between them transcends any fear of that he may have.

“Calm down,” Leon says, placating, as though he’s talking to a startled animal. “You’re just shaken up. I’m not going to quit my job just because I got injured.”

“But what if it happens again, but this time it’s worse. What if you’re not able to get help? What if—”

“I said,” Leon’s voice is hard with frustration now. “that I’m fine. Do you really think that I’d let that happen?”

“You never know what could happen,” Elliot whispers. At these words, Mr Robot slips into the room, creeping up to stand behind Elliot and rant into his ear.

“Remember, control is an illusion, kiddo,” he says, hands pressing down on Elliot’s shoulders. “There’s no way that Leon could control the outcome of every fight. He’s rolling the dice. Didn’t he say that he’s only a gambling man when he knows there’s no way he can lose? What if he’s wrong? He can always lose his life. Humans are much more fragile than they think.”

Elliot ducks his head down, trying to hide his expression as he takes in Mr Robot’s rambling words. He hates to admit it, but Mr Robot is right. Leon’s taking a gamble with his life. No matter how confident he is in his abilities, there’s always a chance that things will go wrong. Is that just Elliot catastrophising over every little thing? If it weren’t for Leon’s visit tonight, he would admit that he’s just panicking over nothing and keep going, but now he can’t help but wonder what will happen to the one he loves.

After a few tense moments, Leon leans forwards, brow furrowed and mouth open to speak, but he is interrupted by a sharp wince. His face scrunches as he lowers himself back down. Broken out of his reverie, Elliot nods towards the bed.

“Do you want to—”

“No, I'll sleep here,” he says tersely, gingerly patting the scruffy couch. His jaw is clenched, either in pain or annoyance, and he seems to be adamant in staying where he is.

Elliot can't seem to meet his eyes after that. His own outburst has formed some sort of rift between them. The guilt of upsetting Leon when he’s in such bad shape weighs heavily on him, forcing his eyes down, as though he can't bring himself to face what he's done.

“O-Okay. Um... goodnight.”

Leon nods again, pulling his now tattered and stained hoodie over himself for warmth. He knows by now that Elliot doesn't own many blankets outside of his own bed sheets, and so he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, eerily silent. It is clear that what Elliot had said has struck a nerve, but he just can't find the right words to salvage the conversation.

Once he is under the sheets, Elliot lets some of his guilt out as silent tears tumble forwards. The distance between them feels much more vast than he had expected, and it was all his fault.

* * *

Since that night, the two of them have been struggling to see eye to eye on the subject. Elliot’s already terrible communication skills have thrown a wrench in any attempts at conversation, all of which have devolved into tense arguments and prolonged silences.

The fight is taking its toll on Elliot. They haven’t seen each other in days, but it might as well be an eternity. He can’t think straight. All that he can do is mentally spiral into a hateful, self-berating tirade as he sits at his cubicle. Angela has asked him what is wrong with him twice already, and Gideon has been shooting him worried glances all day from his office. It’s only a matter of time before he cracks, and he can’t let that happen here. He just needs to get home. That’s when he’ll be able to let it out like he usually does.

When the time comes to leave, Elliot rushes out of the building, expertly evading Angela’s quickly fading invitation to get coffee together. He just needs to get out, to get home, to be alone for a little bit. That is all that he needs.

His mind is starting to fracture by the time he’s on the subway. The tears in his eyes are welling up, forcing him to tip his head down to hide them as they roll down his cheeks. His throat is scratchy with held back sobs as he sits hunched with his hood pulled up. Everything is too much — his thoughts, the sound of the subway screeching with every movement, the suddenly itchy fabric of his clothes, cloying against his skin. Elliot closes his eyes in a final attempt to centre himself, and then everything goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

When Elliot opens his eyes, it’s like he’s dreaming. Everything spins around him. He can feel the solid ground against his back. He can see the pitch black sky above him, clouded over to conceal the stars. His mind is fuzzy, his body is numb, and his senses are dulled. It’s a familiar sensation, to be in an augmented state. However, this isn’t the usual relieving numbness of morphine. This is the clouding, disorienting effect of alcohol. At least he’s cognisant enough to figure that out.

He starts to prop himself up on his elbows, swaying. His head spins again, the darkness around him all-encompassing, inescapable. He can barely see two inches in front of himself, and the creeping sensation of acidic bile is beginning to climb up his throat. Everything hurts. Each and every minuscule movement that he makes causes his joints and muscles to creak and complain, aching and forcing him to flop back down on the ground.

This is starting to scare him. Is he lost? What does he remember last? He starts to scramble around in his mind, desperate to grasp at some sort of clue, any remnant of what may have led him here, but nothing comes. It’s all blank.

Leon. He’ll know what to do. He’s the one who is always there when he needs him the most. In prison, Leon always had his back. Whenever he felt threatened or scared, Leon was the one who could reassure him, protect him. Without him, Elliot would have been done in by those Neo-Nazis in a moment.

Elliot begins to fumble around, blindly searching for his phone in the dark. Once he finds it, the screen illuminates his face. He scrunches up his eyes in response, the sudden brightness scorching his retinas and sending a shooting pain through his alcohol-soaked brain. Through slitted eyes, he unlocks the phone and dials the number. One by one, the phone’s rings resonate in his skull.

“Elliot?”

Air floods into Elliot’s lungs at Leon’s disgruntled, sleep heavy voice. Thank God. Forgetting himself in his relief, he fails to respond.

“Elliot, honey?” Leon says, voice slowly but surely becoming more awake as thinly-veiled panic begins to seep into it. “Are you alright?”

“I—” Elliot is interrupted by an unexpected fit of coughing. He curls up on his side to relieve the pain tugging at his ribs. That’s all too familiar, too. He can’t get anything out, he can’t even focus enough to formulate a sentence. Is it the alcohol, or the injuries? “Leon.”

“Elliot, baby, where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

Once more, Elliot tries to glance around himself, but he just can’t figure it out. He’s outside, that much he can tell. The cool air nips at his face and stings his sensitive eyes. Through the shadows, he can see grey walls on either side of him. Above, the dark sky is filled with low, heavy clouds, dimly lit with the glow of the hidden moon.

He hates this haze. It formulates static in his ears and deadens his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. Despite his best efforts, the words slur together, blurring into each other, betraying his attempts to keep himself coherent. This only seems to worry Leon more, as his voice tightens and more hurried shuffling stirs up through the phone.

“I’ll find you, don’t worry. Can you stay on the phone with me?”

Without thinking, Elliot nods, and after a few dazed moments, he comes to realise the pointlessness of what he’s done. “Yeah, okay.”

There is more rustling on Leon’s end of the call, and then his voice returns. He’s talking again, but Elliot can’t seem to make out the words. The even, comfortingly recognisable cadence of his voice filters through his brain like gentle water on rocks, providing Elliot with a background noise to zone out to.

It helps him to tune out the sounds that are starting to catch his attention — distant voices, shouting and whooping in celebration. Indecipherable yells, far away but close enough to be cause for concern. Are they real, or is his mind just malfunctioning again?

Leon’s voice has always been soothing to Elliot, but now it’s coming out much more quickly than he’s used to. It’s strange to hear how concerned Leon is. He hadn’t even batted an eyelid at being stabbed a few days before, but now there’s a tension in his voice that cuts through Elliot’s mental fog. Elliot takes a few moments to ruminate on this, on how Leon always seems to be fighting for someone else — living for someone else.

Maybe that’s why he can’t leave the Dark Army. He feels a duty to the ones he loves. He can’t put them in danger by risking it all. Perhaps it’s a necessary evil. Elliot had been unreasonable and insensitive, asking him to turn his back on that. Essentially, he had asked Leon to throw away all of the pain and training and challenges that he had put himself through, just because Elliot was concerned.

He squeezes his eyes shut again. Time has become fluid, elusive as it slips away from him. The phone is becoming slippery in his hand, and he struggles to clutch it tighter, muscles loose from the drink in his system.

There’s nothing but silence on the other end, now. He doesn’t blame Leon for giving up on him. He doesn’t know how to be good for the ones he loves.

He suddenly feels cool hands on his face. Shocked at the contact, he curls further into himself. Like this, he can remember his mother standing over him, pointed insults and jabs pouring from her mouth, a smoking cigarette balanced precariously between her fingers. It wasn’t uncommon to find himself in that position, back then.

“Elliot, look at me. Are you hurt?”

Elliot looks up at the familiar voice, helped by the guiding hands against his cheeks. Leon is crouching over him, dressed in his camouflage-print hoodie. In the darkness, Elliot can see how wide Leon’s eyes are as he takes in Elliot’s face. Leon reaches out his hand towards Elliot, and in his inebriated state, he has to remind himself not to recoil. This is Leon; he wouldn’t ever hurt him. He knows that.

Gentle fingers brush just under Elliot’s nose, and when they come away they’re slick with blood. Oddly detached, Elliot wipes at his own face with the back of his hand, observing the vivid smudge across his pale skin.

“What happened, man?”

No memories come to answer the question. All he can do is shrug. He hates disappointing the people he cares about. Darlene always gets so upset whenever his memories get mixed up like this. If Leon reacts the same way, Elliot doesn’t know how he’ll cope.

“I’m sorry,” he slurs, blurry eyes trained on the blood on his hand.

“Never mind that now, cuz.”

He grips Elliot’s elbow steadily, arms coming around his shoulders to hike him up and support his body. Elliot does his best to co-operate, but the pain in his side and the numbness of his limbs cause his movements to be stiff and clumsy.

Leaning against one another, they slowly rise, and Elliot takes the opportunity to get a better look at his surroundings. He had been lying in a narrow alleyway, from the looks of things. A large bin stands against a grey, worn wall, and the ground is splattered with unrecognisable stains and puddles. Swallowing down a sudden fit of nausea, he returns his attention to Leon, who is gazing down at him with his usual intensity.

“Let’s get you home.”

 

* * *

 

In Leon’s sitting room, Leon props Elliot up against a pile of cushions and briskly leaves to find the first aid kit. Elliot finds the role reversal a bit ironic. His head is still spinning, a dull headache slowly developing behind his eyes. He presses his hands into the fabric of the cushions to ground himself, eyes shut. After taking a few moments to centre himself, he opens his eyes to see Mr Robot leaning on the wall opposite him, arms folded and head tilted downwards, keeping his expression hidden behind the rim of his cap. The man is slowly shaking his head, seemingly in disapproval.

“Do you know what happened, back there?” Elliot asks. From past experience, this sort of memory loss tends to be Mr Robot’s doing. Ever since he had connected with Leon, these incidents had been occurring less and less often, but their recent dispute may have played a hand in this.

Mr Robot shrugs, his stance lopsided, and then he pushes himself against the wall to stand up straight. He makes his way over to lean against the couch instead, hand coming up to whisk his hat off so that he can swing it around nervously.

“You sort of... shut down, back there on the train. I had to do something.”

“Something? What did you do?”

The man heaved a sigh and made a broad, vague gesture with his hands before setting his tattered cap back onto his head.

“Well, you know me. I like to get out — more than you do, anyway. So I went for a drink. Wasn’t my fault the guys at the bar were so pissy.”

“You got yourself into a bar fight?”

“What can I say?” he replies, shrugging once more. “I have a flair for the dramatic. The dickheads couldn’t take a joke, so what?”

“And now I have to deal with the injuries. Thanks.”

Mr Robot winces a bit at that.

“For what it’s worth, I _am_ sorry about that. I—”

He’s interrupted as Leon enters the room, lugging along with him a large first aid kit. Once it’s open, Elliot can see that it’s much more extensive than his own. Noticing Elliot’s gaze, Leon chuckles.

“After patching up my sisters’ scraped knees for long enough, I figured I should stock up on this sort of shit. You don’t wanna run out of Disney princess band-aids in this house.”

That teases a small smile out of Elliot, which causes Leon’s own grin to widen. He starts to tend to his boyfriend’s injuries, dabbing carefully at his bloody nose. A moment of comfortable silence falls in the room, and then Leon levels his gaze with Elliot’s, eyebrows raised.

“You want to tell me what happened now?”

Elliot spares Mr Robot a momentary glance.

“I got into a fight.”

“I figured that much, cuz,” Leon says without humour. He pauses for a second, suddenly watching Elliot more intently. “Was that you, or…”

Taking a deep breath, Elliot shakes his head.

“No. No, it was him.” 

It’s strangely reassuring to be able to talk to Leon about Mr Robot. He had worried that telling Leon about his Dissociative Identity Disorder would scare him away at first, but now he knows that Leon would never abandon him because of something he couldn’t control. After struggling so much to open up to even Darlene and Angela, it's unbelievably comforting to have someone to confide in, without fear of judgement or pity.

Leon nods in understanding while Mr Robot throws his hands up in the air.

“Way to throw me under the bus, kiddo.”

“How did you find me?” Elliot asks.

“I might not be as good as you, but you don’t work with the world’s most dangerous hacker group without learning how to track a call or two.”

“Right,” Elliot says. He ducks his head down. “I’m sorry about… about everything. What I said, about leaving the Dark Army. It was selfish, I shouldn’t have—”

He feels Leon’s hand on his shoulder and looks up. Leon’s eyes are warm.

“Don’t worry, man. I understand why you want me to leave, but it just doesn’t work like that with them. If I try to get out of this, I’m not just putting my life on the line. I’m putting my sisters in danger, and I’m putting you in danger. There’s no hiding from these fuckers. I’ve seen enough attempts to know there’s no way out.”

Leon leans forward. His voice drops to a whisper, lips inches from Elliot’s.

“It’s worth it, though. I do what I have to do so the people I love are safe. That’s all that matters to me.”

Their lips meet. Elliot’s eyes flutter closed. Even in these few short days, he missed this easy contact. He missed the connection that he had with Leon, and it felt so good to be back here.

“I know what’ll cheer you up,” Leon says, standing up and pacing over to the TV set. He pulls out a Back to the Future DVD set, presenting it with a goofy flourish. “I was hoping we could watch these together. You know, as an offering of reconciliation.”  
  
Elliot laughs quietly and nods. Satisfied, Leon sets the movie up and settles down beside him, arm stretched across his back. The volume is low so that the kids don’t wake up, but Elliot knows every scene word for word. He gingerly rests his head on Leon’s shoulder, lips curling into a smile.

“Thank you, Leon.”


End file.
